Expectations

A few days ago, I posted my thoughts and questions about Todd Hido’s work in the July 15 issue of The New York Times Magazine. I said then (and it bears repeating) that I’m firmly on the side of artists-doing-whomever-whatever-whenever. Andrew Hetherington responded to my post and took it in different directions on his own blog, writing from his own extensive experience as an editorial photographer and pointing out the many and varied difficulties in editorial assignments. (His post is definitely worth a read if you haven’t checked it out already, as is John Loomis’s own follow-up.)

Hido’s photo isn’t my favorite of his; the word I used to describe it in my initial post is unremarkable, and I still think that fits. But I don’t have any judgments about who gets hired for (or accepts) which assignments. Curious is a more accurate description of how I feel about it. I’m simply interested in how Hido came to do that assignment, what his experience was working on it, and how he felt about the pictures he got and the one the magazine chose to run.

Today, Jörg Colberg posted saying:

. . . it is interesting to see how once editorial work (done by fine-art photographers) is concerned, there is a new complex of topics. For the photographers there are some new problems to tackle, . . . and it seems to me that everybody else has to deal with expectations. We know what photographer X has been doing for a while, and we simply expect to find something along those lines in his or her editorial work—an expectation that (just like any other expectation) is not very helpful (even though it’s exactly the kind of expectation that certain magazines seem to count on when hiring well-known fine-art photographers for editorial work).

I read this and the line that stuck in my mind was “an expectation that (just like any other expectation) is not very helpful.” Really? I think expectations are inherent, and for good reason. Each of us is filled with expectations—expectations are part of what it is to be alive. We expect all kinds of things from ourselves and from each other, and those expectations are what not only get us into trouble but bring us joy. If we had no expectations, we could never be surprised. Part of an artist’s job is to challenge people’s expectations. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that, without expectations, art might not exist.

Besides, to think that a person could possibly approach a photograph, any photograph, without expectations is unrealistic. Break it down: If I tell you that I’m going to show you a photograph, instantly you have an idea about what a photograph is. Your expectations will depend on who you are and what experiences you’ve had with photographs (as well as on who I am and what you know about me), but no matter what, you will have expectations. If I tell you I’m about to show you a Todd Hido photograph, your expectations may or may not change, depending on whether you know Hido’s work (and which of his work you know).

The fact that I had certain expectations of a Hido photograph isn’t a bad thing: It means that I not only have had experiences looking at photographs (experiences that shape my thoughts and feelings when I look at new photographs for the first time), but that I have experience with Todd Hido’s photographs in particular. I approach that photo with all those experiences inside me. And so, in that moment of seeing the photograph for the first time, I may love it or hate it or feel something in between those two extremes. But that initial moment of looking is exciting for exactly that reason.

When I was walking to the newsstand, about to see Alec Soth’s work in W magazine for the first time, I was excited to get my hands on a copy because I had expectations and I knew that those expectations might or might not be met. I might think the photos were crap, or I might be blown away by them, or worst of all, I might not feel anything, and then what? But all those feelings of anticipation that were running through my mind were set into motion specifically because of my expectations.

I expect things of myself, of people known and unknown to me, of my government, of my camera, of my car, of my dog. My expectations are often proven wrong—for better or worse. The world continually surprises me, and I continue to surprise myself.

Expectations may not help, but I wouldn’t want to live without them.